How to render only visible object without using layering or doing some cumbersome steps?
To render only some objects in viewport you can just go to the local view of the object by press /. To hide objects in render mode, just select the objects to be shown in the render or select the objects to be hidden from the render and press CtrlI to invert the selection (remember that objects to be hidden should not be selected) and then press W then select Restrict render unselected. Thus any unselected objects wont be rendered. To remove this, press W and press Clear all restrict render.